If you don't want treatment, get out! This doctor has a terrible temper.

Chapter 167 The Symphony on the Eardrums and the Deaf Guest

The nights at Renxin Pharmacy are not quiet.

The dual cassette recorder, which I bought from a flea market, was spinning idly on the counter. The magnetic powder in the tapes was peeling off badly, and the sound it made was like fingernails scraping a blackboard, or like dozens of cats having their tails stepped on at the same time.

"Boss, if you keep putting this in, all the rats in this building will have to move out." Guan Shan had just sharpened the blade of his entrenching tool, and now he was painfully covering his ears, his brows furrowed so tightly they could trap a fly. "This is not something a human can hear."

Wang Minyu sat in a rocking chair, holding a toothpick in his hand, slowly picking at non-existent gaps between his teeth.

He wasn't wearing earplugs; instead, he was enjoying the noise.

"You don't know how to appreciate it." Wang Minyu spat out the toothpick. "This is a 'love letter' sent to us by that guy underground. Every waveform is a high-concentration form of mental pollution. Guan Shan, have you been feeling too irritable lately? Listen to it more, fight fire with fire. When you can fall asleep listening to this stuff, your Popeye syndrome will be cured."

Su Qing rolled her eyes, holding a piece of solder wire and modifying a device that looked like a radar. "Boss, Zero has analyzed it. The frequencies on this tape are strange; they can cause resonance in the basilar membrane of the human cochlea, thus triggering deep anxiety. Simply put, it's an audio virus."

"Viruses are great, as long as they don't infect me, they're like vaccines."

As they were talking, the wind chimes at the door didn't ring, but a strange sense of tranquility suddenly pressed in.

The person who pushed open the door was a middle-aged man wearing a gray woolen overcoat.

He was very thin, the kind of thinness from long-term malnutrition, but he wore a pair of oversized headphones that looked incredibly expensive, with a headphone cable thicker than his little finger that ran all the way to a device in his arms.

The middle-aged man entered the room and first glanced disapprovingly at the still-screaming tape recorder. Then he quickly pulled out a pair of specially made noise-canceling earplugs from his pocket and stuffed them into his ears before finally letting out a long sigh of relief.

"Mr. Zhou?" Wang Minyu didn't get up, but pointed to the chair opposite him.

Zhou Tong is known as the "Golden Ear" among audiophiles in Changxiang City.

It is said that this person can distinguish between thermal power and hydropower – thermal power is noisy, while hydropower is smooth.

In pursuit of ultimate tranquility and pure sound quality, he renovated his home into an anechoic chamber, but ended up developing severe "hearing hypersensitivity".

Zhou Tong didn't sit down. He didn't even take off his headphones. He just looked at the equipment in the shop with the eyes of someone looking at trash: "Dr. Wang, a friend recommended me. He said you can cure my insomnia. But looking at this environment... the background noise here is too loud. The electrical noise, the refrigerator compressor, and that big guy's heartbeat, it's too noisy."

Guan Shan looked down at his chest, completely bewildered.

"Too noisy?" Wang Minyu stood up, walked to the recorder, and pressed the stop button.

The world is quiet now.

"Mr. Zhou, your problem isn't that your hearing is too sharp, it's that your mind is too idle." Wang Minyu walked around the counter and stood in front of Zhou Tong. "You've blocked out all the noise, so your brain, in order to find stimulation, will create its own noise. That's what you hear as 'background noise,' which is actually your nerves just idling."

Zhou Tong took off one earbud, his face full of disdain: "You don't understand. Real sound is pure. My equipment cost over three million, and I can hear even the slightest impurity. I can't sleep right now because this world is too dirty."

"Alright, over three million." Wang Minyu laughed, a laugh like a butcher eyeing a fat sheep. "Then let's make a bet. I have some 'natural white noise' I just received. If you can hear the 'impurities' in it, your consultation fee is waived, and I'll give you a box of calming jade seeds. If you can't hear them..."

"If you can't tell, I'll give you this Sennheiser Grand Orpheus II set." Zhou Tong was stubborn as a mule, and he shut down the conversation directly.

"make a deal."

Wang Minyu gave Zero a wink.

Su Qing connected the modified "radar" to the tape recorder, and the output was connected to Zhou Tong's expensive headphones.

"Ready? It might be a little...exciting." Wang Minyu pressed play.

It wasn't that piercing scream from before.

After Zero's real-time noise reduction and frequency reconstruction, the sound in the tape became a deep, heart-beat-like rhythm.

That was the sound of that huge valve breathing, three thousand meters underground.

That was the mournful sound of hundreds of millions of tons of rock being squeezed and rubbed together.

Zhou Tong's previously disdainful expression froze instantly.

He felt as if he was no longer standing in a dilapidated pharmacy, but had been thrown into a huge, damp cavity filled with primal vitality.

There was no electrical hum, no background noise, only a pure, overwhelming sense of oppression.

This sense of oppression wasn't noise, but... awe.

His pupils began to dilate, his breathing became rapid, and his well-maintained hands gripped the edge of the counter tightly, his fingernails scratching white marks into the wood.

"What...is this?" Zhou Tong's voice trembled. "This low frequency...it's going so deep! My headphone drivers are vibrating...no, my bones are vibrating!"

"This is the pulse of the Earth," Wang Minyu explained coolly from the side. "It's the most authentic sound in the 'dirty' world you mentioned. How about it, pure enough?"

Zhou Tong didn't say anything. He took it to heart.

The sound was like a tidal wave, instantly shattering the auditory defenses he had built up.

His overly sensitive auditory nerves were forced to give up resistance in the face of this enormous sound wave, and entered a passive "massage" state.

One minute later, the music stopped abruptly.

Zhou Tong's legs went weak, and he collapsed to the ground.

His face was covered in sweat, but he had a satisfied expression like an addict.

"Awesome...so awesome..." Zhou Tong trembled as he took off his headphones, his eyes unfocused. "The symphonies I used to listen to are like children's toys compared to this. Dr. Wang, whose recording is this? Bernstein? Or Karajan?"

"It's a band called 'Unspeakable'." Wang Minyu ejected the cassette tape, twirled it twice in his hand, and asked, "Mr. Zhou, is your insomnia cured?"

Zhou Tong was stunned for a moment, then felt a strong wave of drowsiness wash over him.

That's the brain's forced shutdown protection after experiencing extreme load.

"I'm cured... I just want to sleep now..." Zhou Tong struggled to take off the expensive equipment and place it on the counter. "A bet's a bet. This thing... is yours. But I have a request..."

"explain."

"Could you sell me one of these cassette tapes? I'll pay any price!"

Wang Minyu put the cassette tape back in his pocket: "This is prescription medication, you can't take it with you. If you want to listen, you have to get a membership card. From now on, every night at 8 PM, Renxin Pharmacy's 'Abyss Concert,' tickets are 2,000 yuan, no exceptions."

Without a word, Zhou Tong took out his phone and scanned 20,000 yuan: "Go ahead! Get me an annual pass! I want to be the first to listen!"

After seeing off the unsteady Zhou Tong, Guan Shan picked up the pair of headphones that were supposedly worth a house, carefully put them on his head, and listened to what was going on inside. All he could hear was a hissing sound of electricity.

"Boss, is this thing really worth over three million?" Guan Shan asked with a look of disdain. "It doesn't even make as much noise as the one I got on Pinduoduo for 9.9 yuan with free shipping."

"Technology is worthless, faith is." Wang Minyu tossed the headphones to Zero. "Take it apart. Take out the diaphragm and coil. Our store's broadcasting system needs an upgrade. Since that guy underground wants to play with sound, let's install an amplifier for him."

Seeing Wang Minyu dismantling the top-of-the-line Hi-Fi equipment like scrap metal, Su Qing couldn't help but ask, "Boss, aren't you afraid that if this sound gets out, it'll drive everyone on the street crazy?"

"It won't drive you crazy." Wang Minyu picked up a screwdriver and focused intently on unscrewing the headphone amplifier's casing. "As long as you turn the frequency up a little, it won't be mental pollution, but rather... a divine song to cure constipation."